


what you need to do

by DaughteroftheCosmos



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Responsibility, TM TM TM, back on my second person pov hamid introspection bullshit, because OF COURSE I AM, let me know in comments if i should tag anything else!, pov hamid, suicidal themes (very briefly and only metaphorical), vague spoilers for shoin arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25775623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughteroftheCosmos/pseuds/DaughteroftheCosmos
Summary: "the fire in you still thinks this is a fight that can be won and so you tip backwards off the ledge as if there were no other choice, as if you still deserve to be the one to make the compromise, as if you ever did."
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	what you need to do

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to AJJ- "Children of God" for literally one line in this entire thing but also for being a kickass song. this fic is lowkey mean to hamid but what else can we do with our faves but be mean to them. i really enjoy the very specific brand of second person where it feels like the narrative is telling you something, like the narrative itself is biased, and i tried to use that in this fic, so i hope it works for readers.
> 
> comments and kudos always appreciated! if u cant think of anything to say about the fic then just tell me ur favorite thing about hamid bc i love that funky little dragon boy, even if this fic makes it seem like i want to punch him in the face. i am mutifaceted.

it’s like this: 

responsibility has always been a four letter word. you used to toss the dice with a kiss and a wink, used to watch the chips slide across the table between you and the other college dropouts like a game of ping pong, like pouring cheap champagne down the drain. you used to stumble out of bars with a nameless girl on your arm like the troubled heroes in terrible books do. every night in the gambling hall there’d be at least one old man in the corner smoking a pipe he bought with the last few pieces of silver in the bottom of his pocket, nursing a whiskey, and you never, ever thought hard enough to see yourself in him. 

but before it was drink and game it was guilt and shame you drowned yourself in like the bottom of a bottle, as you scurried off to your london apartment with your tail between your legs and a deep heaviness in your soul. you have so, so many things to regret already, and you wielded each and every one of them like a bullet loaded into a gun pointed straight at your head. twist the chamber and fire and fire and fire and funny how it never seems to kill you, never seems to make you stop. funny how long you can spend beating yourself up without it leaving a bruise.

and even before the pity you soaked yourself in like an onsen it was cruelty, pure and simple. words are weapons in the same way that they’re walls and you were more than ready to take up arms if it meant deflecting an attack. it felt like every move was chosen and calculated to make the pawn you were seem as useful as a queen, but you can't build walls against the world made out of the same things they use to break them down. it didn’t matter, though, because you were too busy being smart and having a girlfriend to think about the innocent bystanding until the only consideration you could offer was to mourn.

___

adventure was just another kind of avoidance, and as you talked through one side of your mouth and slipped someone else’s ring on your finger you made sure the ugly side stayed shut. you made sure of that, at least, until it felt too much like you could help someone learn if you could only explain what it’s like to make a mistake. you looked into his eyes and demanded he press on like you hadn't just spent months giving up, giving in, as if a lesson is only obvious to the world at the exact moment it’s obvious to you. 

there is a moment, though, where you are stark against the world, dissected and vulnerable. “bring it into the light”, and you are the light, and the world is the light, and it is a flame and it is the bleached out blankness of a hospital hallway and an interrogation room and a gods blinding shine. you double back to your apartment and you grip the gun again and you fire and it makes a  _ real  _ mark. the mark looks like a raging inferno and broken shards of glass. it looks like the crumpled silhouettes of your sister and your friend against the theater spotlight. it looks like a man turned away from you, always away. and then you turn and find your brother’s hand in yours and it doesn't feel so much of a curse word to think about what you need to do. 

___

things change, as things are wont to do, but this shift buried itself into the foundations of the world with tight and grasping strands that will not let go. this change refuses to yield, refuses to be understood, refuses to be untangled and uncomplicated. you thrust your clawed hands into the meat of it but the change wraps around you like a vice and all it does it show you that you have remained exactly the same. the fire in you still thinks this is a fight that can be won and so you tip backwards off the ledge as if there were no other choice, as if you still deserve to be the one to make the compromise, as if you ever did.

you remember hearing once at school that people were fools to think hatred was the opposite of love. you learned then that it is apathy, an undistilled indifference and the thing that terrifies you most. you did not think they would follow but they did, and now they are yours, yours in the way that you were your father’s, yours in the way that your father was the family’s. you refuse them apathy and think it a blessing, but you do not refuse them leadership. you did not ask for them but they are yours, and you will be responsible for them. it will not be a four letter word, and you guide them to save the day, as if to command them is the same as to bear their burden.

it’s like this. 


End file.
